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74 ANNUAL REPORT. 
tired of malaria and slavery; men from all quarters flocked to the new State, as 
to a veritable gold field, for homes, health and fortune; then last the eastern 
nurseryman, ever on the search for ‘‘fresh fields and pastures new,’’ came down 
like the wolf on the fold, and, figuratively speaking, it’s a wonder he left a sin- 
gle lamb. His canvass must have been thorough; every old settler we ever knew 
bought a good big bill of the Rochester nursery, (we mean Rochester, N. Y.,) 
and as memory brought back visions of the old apple orchard, they selected the 
varieties known and appreciated in the old Lome, supposing of course they 
would flourish here even as they themselves were thriving. It is probably a 
safe estimate that of the hundreds of thousands of trees thus distributed, not one 
in a thousand is to-day alive and thrifty. Many accounted for the poor success 
in growing, to the exposure incident to so long a trip, and by degrees home 
nurseries began and endeavored to propagate the same old sort, with the same 
result. This proved disastrous to horticultural interests, fruit tree growing be- 
came an experiment. 
Some thinking men remembered that, as ‘‘there was people and people,’ so 
also there might be apple trees and apple trees, and while exotics need be kept 
under glass, there should be hardy trees and shrubs suited to our frigid and tor- 
rid extremes. The problem is being solved. Hardy, acclimated varieties were 
the ‘‘open sesame."’ These were picked up, here a little and there a little, 
largely through the efforts of this society, and its veteran members, careful ex- 
periment, diligent search and honest labor have brought forth and show with 
triumph to-day that Minnesota need no longer look with envy toward the or- 
chards of her sister States. Hardy fruit trees are no longer a myth. Unfortu- 
nately public confidence is a tender plant, and when once rudely broken is al- 
most as hard to grow as an eastern apple tree; there had been many experi- 
ments at the expense of the customer and this was not easy to forget. People 
grew careless on the subject, became rusty in horticultural knowledge and took 
the desponding view that it was hopeless to expect fruit in Minnesota. When * 
canvassed they unwillingly signed their order, offering excuse after excuse and 
being compelled through sheer logic and cheek to sign the order for perhaps a 
beggarly dozen of trees with garden fruit in proportion. After crossing the Ru- 
bicon, repentance for the rash deed came, and a forlorn hope that maybe a ben- 
eficent providence would interpose some obstacle to delivery. In due time notice 
of date and place of delivery came, and not appreciating the necessity of prompt- 
ness both for their own and the agent’s good, they leisurely happened along, 
usually a few days after the appointed time, giving their stock an opportunity 
to lose its freshness after being removed from careful packing, unheeding the: 
usual request to provide themselves with straw and blankets for root protection, 
they bring as shelter to the tender roots of their stock the hard sides and bottom 
of an empty wagon box. (The writer has seen an empty wheat sack brought 
as protection to the roots of a billof nursery stock, containing fifty trees), and the 
stock is thus started out in the tender care of a man who loathes his task from 
the beginning. Arriving at home, after everything else has received attention, 
the trees are heeled in a shallow hole until a more favorable time to follow the 
explicit directions of the nurseryman for burying them. Oftentimes an unfore- 
seen cold snap closes the ground, and the trees which ought to be two feet below 
the surface of the earth are frozen with perhaps as many inches of earth over 
the roots to protect them from the dangers of alternate freezing and thawing. 
Evergreens, costly grape vines and garden fruits all taking pot luck with the apple 
